Over the last couple of days we have taken our monthly trip to Mae Sai and Myanmar [Burma] to renew our visas.

We are visiting Thailand on a visitors Visa, which means we can only stay for 30 days at a time.

It just so happens that one of the border crossings is very close to Chiang Mai. It is the border with Burma or Myanmar.

We decided to rent a jeep for a couple of days , as we did with Nirav and Vistara, and do some sightseeing on our way back.

We rented the jeep on Thursday 5th, around 4pm, and began our trip North to Mae Sai, the Thai Border city.

The journey took several hours, as it was getting dark. We decided to take a break and stop off in Chiang Rai for the night [about 1 hour south of Mae Sai].

Finding accommodation in Chiang Rai was quite a challenge! Many "hotels" had rooms, but they looked like prison cells. We nearly gave up, but on the way out of the city the YMCA International Hotel loomed out of the dark.

We stopped there and bedded down for the night, in twin beds. The mattresses felt like cardboard on top of bricks - it was the worst night's sleep I have had in a long time!

The next day we got up and 6am. It was still dark. We quickly packed, checked out, jumped in the jeep and finished the journey to Mae Sai.

We arrived before the immigration office opened, so we went to the temple on the hill and made ourselves a delicious fresh fruit salad for breakfast.

We decided not to stay in Myanmar for long. Instead, we took advantage of having a jeep and set off to see a bit more of Northern Thailand.

Burma hadn't changed since the last time we were there (30 days before), but we did get some more photos for you to experience more of the PEOPLE.

I got this picture specifically for the SKEET family, as this man is wearing a
Manchester United
football shirt...

YOU LOT ARE EVERYWHERE!!

Burma, at least the border town, is filled with "beggars" and "urchins" - it's like a scene from Oliver Twist…

The children are about 4 years old, and they carry infants around on their backs trying to entice tourists to give them money. They learn to beg from a very early age!

Look at this photo. The little one is less than one year old!

We gave them food. Pieces of dried plum. They seemed to enjoy it.

There was no sign of any parents around. It really taught me how we have a tendency to be so protective of our children. Here they are running around with no protection and are fine… if you can call a life of begging fine!

There wasn't really much to see - I can see why they say if you stay overnight you have the place to yourself!

We stopped in town and walked to a small market where the hill tribe [the Akha Tribe] was displaying their wares.

See more of the Akha Tribe here:
** Akha Children **

The Tribe people here are more "pushy" than those in Chiang Mai.

Here a women, obviously more desperate to sell, came over and gently grabbed me by the hand and steered me towards her stall.

Other women waved me over to them saying "look, look". Everything was so cheap and so colorful.

Several of the women, as you may be able to see from the picture above, have red, decomposed teeth. They have become addicted to some beetle nut. It literally rots away their teeth and it is some form of narcotic which they become addicted to.

It seems that the hardship of life in general has taken its toll on the women, there were no men around at all, just women and children. The woman looked very "worn".

They are friendly people, all in all.

The children however are adorable and fun and are constantly laughing. They also try to sell to you!

They were all around us. They have learned how to say "Hello, 10 baht".

They were selling the little bracelets for 10 baht [25cents].

I started to have some fun with them and replied"Hello 10 baht" to them as if it was their name…they giggled and giggled, not really concerned that I wasn't buying from them.

(ROLL your mouse over the photograph to SEE THE ACTION!]

Vibodha started to take some photos and showed them to the children. They were so amazed and loved it.Their laughter was wonderful.

Yet these children have really nothing. No presents, none of the comforts of western children, living in what we would call "squalor" and yet they are happy. It was well worth a visit and some of those women are great salespeople…

I am sure they persuade a lot of people to buy!

Next we headed on west towards Tha Ton.

Tha Ton is a well known starting point for rafting trips and trekking to the hill tribe villages.

It is a beautiful and quaint little village with a great aura.

There are a series of Buddha statues and temples up on the hill overlooking the town that was well worth stopping for.

You can take a look in more detail here:
Wat Tha Ton

We spoke to a monk who shared with us that there is a bell that sounds every morning at 4am to wake up the monks and it can be heard all over town. It is beautiful.

Back to Chiang Mai for the night. After a comfortable sleep and an alarm call for 7am and we were on the move again. This time a visit to Pai.

This time I drove and that was FUN!! It took immense concentration to move it around the very mountainous and very twisty roads.

I felt like I have been in a joint aerobic and weightlifting class for 2 hours.

We stopped on the top of the mountain for breakfast and ate gazing at this wonderful view.

It reminds me of driving through Pennsylvania or the mountain regions of Canada.

By the time we got to PAI, it was lunch time - it had taken us much longer that we expected.

We had to return the jeep that afternoon which did not leave us much time in Pai to look around.

[MOVE OVER THE PHOTO WITH YOUR MOUSE !]

This is a view of the small town on Pai (Pronounced pie).

There were "Farangs" everywhere!! A "farang" is a foreigner. It was literally swarming with backpackers. That would put me off being there for any length of time. We really are not in Backpacker traveler mode!

The town is very small and quaint and we could see why so many tourists were there.

It is nice and quiet and people go there for great elephant rides and white water rafting as well as to relax and chill out!

It looks like wonderful place to hang out.

We took some time to visit a beautiful temple and spire in Pai. see it here: Wat Klang, Pai, Thailand

The waterfalls in the area are supposed to have wonderful swimming "pools". I am sure they would have been delightful in these hot hots days!

We picked up some whole wheat rolls, some cheese for a picnic on the way back and started off again.

We drove back the same way as we came. The other alternative is a very small mountain road. Distance wise it didn't appear much longer, but the mountainous terrain meant a 4 or 5 hours journey back to Chiang Mai.

We had our "life planning" day today. This is when we look at our physical, spiritual, emotional and financial goals.

We look at our priorities and compare what is important to both of us in all the realms of our life. Then we look at the possibilities available for us and commit to our intentions and actions to be in line with out values and priorities!

It is a great process!

We have done this before and it is a great way to understand more about ourselves individually and our relationship and what we want from our lives.

This is Sharon and Joyce our American Friends who invited us to the Cremation.

SEE THE ABBOTTS CREMATION HERE

They live here in Mae Rim and Sharon goes to Yoga with us. They are wonderful. Joyce and Jim have been traveling for the last 20 years and have just come from living in Mexico for the last 6 years. They have so many amazing stories to tell and are an inspiration for an alternative way of life!

Jim is from Belfast in Northern Ireland. He is a great storyteller...maybe we can get him to write some of his experiences for you!

Sharon and Joyce are best friends and have known each other for 25 years!

They all live in a beautiful house in Mae Rim, which is inside the grounds of a HUGE property, next to a WAT. [This is the wat where the cremation took place.]

They tell us so many stories about their travels and adventures...in the caves of Minorca...sailing in the Mediterranean for 3 years... living in Mexico for 6 years!!

Jim says and shows us that you do not have to be rich to live a rich life - they are so free and really enjoy living life to the full.

It is great to be with another Northern Irish person!

They are great hosts!!

I have been suffering a little from Culture Shock and I have really gone off the food so they made us tomato soup and popcorn, it tasted great!

I have been working on controlling the thoughts in my mind, barring the negative thoughts and images, she assisted me greatly by saying that those thoughts actually stem from beliefs and it helps to start isolating your beliefs as well as your thoughts.

We had a fabulous Christmas day.

We moved into our lovely hotel Rydges, which overlooks the East Moat and ThaePae Gate. [A present from my Mum and Dad - thank you!!]

It was beautiful. We got upgraded to a deluxe room with a beautiful mountain view!

This hotel is much closer to the area we normally frequent so we were able to leave our bike and just take a walk around, this way we got to see many more shops and places that we had not before.

The weather wasn't sunny enough to sunbathe on Christmas Eve so we went for a Christmas Meal at Tuk Tuk's [not the same meal as your Christmas day though I am sure!].

I immediately took a bath with my aromatherapy oils which I had optimistically brought with me to Chiang Mai [glad I did now].

We relaxed and I settled in front of "Star World" [Cable TV]. We watched all the great TV shows like Cheers, Frasier, Who's Line is it anyway, Charmed etc.

We do have a TV in our normal hotel but we put it in the cupboard and never watch it. This was a treat. I have watched some of the Spurs Games on Sunday nights!!

As we were relaxing we suddenly noticed the noise of fire engines.

We looked out the window and saw smoke off in the distance….

E.J. got home from being the "reporter and explorer".

Check out what happened here:
** FIRE **LIVE from CHIANG MAI

For our Christmas Treat we went back to the Night Bazaar with the clear objective to visit Starbucks.

Hot Chocolate, Iced Caramel Macchitto and blueberry cheesecake! Yum!

I nipped across to MacDonald's to treat myself [for the first time in months, to a caramel sundae], but like in Malaysia they don't seem to have "caramel" here [why ever not I can't imagine it is so yummy], so I had a Strawberry one instead.

I also wanted an apple pie, but the Thai McDonald's Hot Pie selection consisted of: corn, pineapple and tarot.

Tarot is a purple root that is indigenous to Hawaii and the South Pacific, if you eat it raw after you have taken a few bites it feel like you have just eaten a small cactus, because the minerals turn into sharp crystals…but cooked it turns into a purple paste….they put it in ice-cream here as well, with sweet corn!!

In Thailand sweet corn is eaten as a dessert. They add lots of condensed milk and little sweets and candy like "Dolly Mixtures" etc.

More views of the night bazaar and Chiang Mai in December here: CM LIFE

When we arrived back at the hotel there were Thai carol singers gathered around the Christmas tree singing beautifully.

We sat in the foyer with a tomato juice and peanuts and listened to the Thai people happily singing "Jingle Bells",
"We Wish You a Merry Christmas" & a few other favorites.

It was so cute; they were really having a good time.

Then Santa Claus arrived. A Thai Santa who said "Kap Kun Kap" [for thank you]. That was fun!!

On Christmas Day we got up for breakfast around 8.30am and spent a wonderful 2 hours down in the restaurant, eating until our heart's content. We took our books with us and made it a wonderful leisurely time.!

We were the last to leave the dining room!!

Delicious food! We haven't had a breakfast like it for quite some time, well since we stayed at the JW Marriott in KL! Scrumptious!

The sun was indeed shining especially for Christmas Day, so we went out to the pool and sunbathed for a couple of hours.

What a delight!!

Sorry for all the rest of you in the snow!

As if our day could get more relaxing…….

..we decided to go for a 1 and a half hour long massage, our first one since arriving in Chiang Mai.

The Massages were wonderful and they cost $3.75 each!!!!

We felt fantastic!!

Our new friends (from left) Ernie, Noi, Sharon, (me), Jim (E.J.) and Joyce (photo above) were having their Christmas Lunch literally 5 minutes walk from our hotel, so we freshened up and made our way down there.

They were in great form and had a great day and we spent about an hour or so with them… they have invited us up to their wonderful house to spend New Year with them, so that will be fun!

Back at the hotel we settled down and watched Mulan, the Disney Movie.

I called home and spoke to my Mum and Dad, which was great & then we went out for dinner to Stefano's, a delicious Italian restaurant, just around the corner.

We ate LOADS of food; pasta, pizza, bread, oils, ice cream, tiramisu, coffee and tea!! Yummy and all for $12.50!

We had a wonderful Christmas Day, headed home around 10pm and just relaxed.

The next morning, Boxing Day, we were so stuffed that we hardly had much room for breakfast!!

But we still managed some!

We watched some more TV & had more tea and doughnuts!!

What a great Christmas - thanks Mum & Dad!

We went over to Central, the shopping complex, to book our tickets to see The Two Towers and realized, to our surprise and delight, that it was actually on today… a Boxing Day surprise!!

So we got ourselves ready and went back to watch the second part of The Lord of the Rings which happens to be our favorite book! [Both of us].

It was great - a little bit on the "warring" side, but that is how the story goes!!

So Christmas in Chiang Mai - an awesome experience. We trust you enjoyed yours too!!